Emporia State distance runner Katie Mona made everybody else’s summer seem pretty ordinary at the USA Junior Outdoor track and field championships this weekend in Eugene, Ore. (where yours truly was born), finishing sixth in the 3000 meters with a time of 10:28:21. The rising sophomore from Lenexa was one of four Hornets in Eugene, along with Vincent Howze (400m hurdles), Darwin Hall (100m dash) and Asher Delmott (3000m steeplechase). Mona was the MIAA champ in the 3000 this season and finished second in the 1500.
My Uncle Kevin took me to see this flick when I was a little kid. I’m pretty sure we went to go see it again the next weekend.
The KCAC unveiled its new logo today and … I like it! Quite an upgrade from the old one which had a real 1920s, Fountainhead-ish feel to it. The new logo is the creation of Tabor senior Dallas Pruitt, a McPherson native who also plays soccer for the Bluejays. The 10 stars in the logo — which if it lasts as long as the old one will outlive us all — represent the KCAC’s 10 teams. Nice job, Dallas … the graphic design major knocked it out of the park.
Fort Hays State quarterback and Shawnee Mission Northwest product Mike Garrison was nice enough to chat with Sunflower Slate for a few minutes Thursday evening about a wide range of topics — from trying to get the Tigers into the MIAA discussion (might happen), getting his jaw broken (not fun) and winning a national football title at Butler Community College (where he also played basketball). Oh, and he let us take a peek into his IPod, where he’s rocking Disturbed.
Friends has got a new women’s soccer coach, reaching across Kellogg to grab Newman men’s assistant Victor Garcia-Bebek. What’s it mean? It means that Alan Shepherd, while still the busiest dude around, can take a deep breath. Here’s the release below, from Scott Robinson.
Compliments of ESU’s Josh Slaughter, here’s an update on some Hornets and their minor-league travels, the lot of them in short-season A ball. Ryan Anthony, a big lefty from Overland Park, was the latest to sign, and he’ll be with either one of two Cleveland farm teams — Lake County or Mahoning. Looks like Conner Crumbliss is spending his days in Vancouver.
First Doug Hall leaves Southwestern for UMKC, and now this. The KCAC, with all its quirks, proves year after year it is a pretty fertile proving ground for up and coming coaches. The latest is Kansas Wesleyan baseball coach Dave Dawson, who makes the move to the NCAA Division II level in a big way, taking over as head coach at Arkansas Tech. Dawson, 36, coached the Coyotes for four seasons, and wrecked shop when he was there. Dude finished with back-to-back KCAC titles after winning the tourney in 2007, and took KWU to the NAIA World Series and snag its first-ever top 25 ranking. He was also the KCAC coach of the year three times. So he pretty much did all he could do while in Salina. And now he’s going to coach the Wonder Boys.
The Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission banquet is June 26 and there are a couple of Sunflower Slate-ians up for the men’s and women’s college athlete of the year awards, including Former Wichita North and Butler defensive end Zac Clark, who is battling for a starting spot at Oregon this fall. Cowley has two nominees in men’s tennis player Boomer Saia — son of CC athletic director Tom Saia — and all-everything softball standout Jacey Juden, who is headed to Northwestern Oklahoma State. Butler trackster Leah Thompson is also up for the women’s award.
So my story about Newman came out today (in short, they want to be in the MIAA) and when it got delayed a week I was worried I was going to have to change a big chunk of it because the MIAA’s vote on letting Rockhurst in was supposed to be this past Friday — June 12 — but they put it off until July 1. They did have a vote on Friday about expansion, but it was secret, and it was the athletic directors that voted on it. But if you read my story you can see that the athletic directors in the MIAA are definitely against expansion, so I guess it’s not a very well-kept secret. I tried to talk to all 12 of them, got nine to go on record and out of those, eight were against expansion in any form. What’s that mean? Just that I spent a lot of time talking to ADs, who are an interesting bunch.
I’m liking Pitt State’s new site — www.pittstategorillas.com — more for function than flash. Not to bag on the old site but … it had a real 1997-ish feel to it and it was a pain to navigate. The new site is crisp. Teams on the left. General info on the top. Click on a player’s bio and no more pop-ups that look like the online putting game you get every now and then. So props to PSU. And, lest I forget, they’re also on Twitter. So now, that I know of, that puts Butler, Emporia State and Pitt State in the Twitterverse amongst Sunflower Slate teams. I’m generally disgusted by Twitter but I think in this particular use … it’s tolerable.
